KingLou Drops Science 2.0

Jodi, Ace & I drove out of NYC last week Saturday and it was probably one of the rainiest drives I've done in a long time. Poured rain the entire time we were driving. What should have been a 4-5 hour drive was seven. Basically it sucked. Ace watched a half a season of Scooby Doo and then opted for not doing anything at all the rest of the trip. Hard to believe he was scooby'd out. Once we were within striking distance of the house we stopped and bought some groceries. I should say a fucking boat load of them. We dropped $220+ at the Shaw's Market with a pronounced OUCH. But on the upside got a coupon that gives you ten cents off (for every $50 you spend) a gallon of gas at this other local gas station. So we got a forty cents off per gallon coupon. Prices have dropped to below $4 up here but saving and extra forty per gallon is a big deal. Turned out we could combine the coupons so when we did fill up a few days a go we saved fifty cents a gallon on a full tank. It added up to like $7+ savings. Pretty sweet.

Day one: Did the usual early morning crab hunt. Ace showed his rustiness by being scaredy when I was trying to give him the crabs but soon enough he was warming up to the idea of picking up the terrified crustaceans. The rest of the day was super nice. Sunny. We went boogie boarding several times. I started reading "Soon I Will Be Invincinble" which is a book about superheros. It's kind of a light-hearted book about a super evil genius and him sort of trying to figure out why he's never been a success and how this next plan can't fail. I enjoyed it even if it wasn't super awesome.

Day five: Jodi and Ace went to a local children's museum. It was typical kids museum stuff. Fun experiments and so on. I spent the day trying will myself to read these technical books and so on. Without success. I started reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. DEPRESSING!

Near the end of the first week Guy and his lovely wife Rebecca stopped by on their way to Maine with their cutie son, Ames. Rebecca's folks live up in Maine and since we're on the way up there they asked if they could make us a pitstop. We had a nice little night of chit chat and a nice mellow morning including a trip to the farmers market. Guy finally got me a copy of his film, Nausea 2, in which I play the role of his Manager. I was glad to be able to see it again. I hadn't seen it since it premiered at the Museum of Modern Art a few years ago. I look super young in it. I had a haircut I was fond of as well.... I am weird looking...

Guy and friends left and on Saturday morning and we waited for the next party people to arrive. Basically we had the first week alone and then the second week was all massive family time. My uncle and aunt came along with my cousin Dan, cousin Amanda and her husand, Shoky, who were up from Argentina with their 3 year old son and infant daughter. The house is about to get mad crowded yo! Also arriving on Monday are my brother and his delightful lady friend, Liz. Crazy family times are about to commence!

Day (through the end) Its been a totally weird trip weather wise. We keep waking up to rain and gloom. Then by noon it's sunny and hot the followed by crazy thunderstorms then more sun then some kind of crazy darkness people are calling "Night." We did our usual trip to Hampton Beach, NH. I failed to win at the over-inflated-basketball-into-the-oval-hoop carny game again this year. I did manage to win at the dart game so I didn't leave empty handed. I chose a big old stuffed Kung Fu Panda bear for Ace. He was appropriately pleased. We proceeded to run from arcade to arcade. Eating Blink's Fry Dough on the main drag. My cousin Amanda and her husband and 3 year old were there as well. They headed to the nearest playground and spent tons of time there. We spent a little time there but I wasn't there for the playground I was there for Skeeball and other arcade dumbness. We left full of bad food and good times. Thats what Hampton is all about. Someday maybe I'll catch a 3rd rate band there. They have some kind of killer music venue there. KC and the Sunshine Band were playing for cri'sake!

Went to Portland Maine again this year to catch another Double A Minor League Baseball game. The Portland Seadogs did not disappoint. They crushed the Altoona Curve 11-2 in an amazing game. There was even a grand slam. Take that you shitty Pittsburgh Pirates Double A affiliate! BOOOYAH!

My mom was talking about buying another surfboard for the house. I don't really know why but its something that captured her imagination a few years ago. She bought one maybe a year or so ago and I've used it a few times. Before that there was a board under the house for ages that only visitors to the house used as far as I know. Anyway I was boogie boarding one day and go to talking to some guy in the water who told me that he'd managed to get kick ass deals at the local surf shop. When I told my mom this she started talking about going to check out boards. I'd always been interested in getting a wet suit of some variety. The notion that I could get one on the cheap was really enticing. The water at the beach in New Hampshire is NOT warm. Some people insist that it's freezing. I've never had a real problem with it. In fact I tend to stay in longer than anyone else no matter how cold. But when you're trying to ride a surfboard you get pretty torn up by the wax and you spend a lot of time above the water in the air. Seemed to me like having some kind of cover would be a good idea. So we went I tried to get a used suit. For some reason Amanda's husband was able to go the day before and buy a used wetsuit without a second look. Classically I show up and say "I'm interested in buying a used wetsuit" and get the "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about" routine. The guy insisted they probably didn't have anything then led me over to a rack of wet wetsuits that were old rentals. I tried in vain to get one of them on before realizing that I had the fucking thing on backwards. It was impossible to put on correctly either. I was getting classically depressed when someone suggested a short sleeve/pants model. Once I moved up a size (I am just getting fucking giant) I was able to fit into the NEW wetsuit. Yeah, no deal for me. Ace also got a wetsuit. It's swanker thank mine.

How did I do on that new surfboard you might ask? I sucked. I should take a lesson. We had some amazing surf for once near the end of the trip and I wiped out so many times it was retarded. My reward? I got an earful of water that killed my right ear. Haven't been able to hear of it properly for almost a week now. I RULE!

The trip home was nice and easy. We saved some more gas $ thanks to all the grocery store gas discounts. That is seriously like the best grocery store perk ever. I finally managed to get to the bike shop that was going out of business and pick up some nice clothes before we headed out since it was on the way out of town. We got lost a few times on the way home (Connecticut is so fucking long...) but unlike normal we never panicked and were able to right ourselves pretty quickly. We had the GPS on but only as a guide to where we were. It has a really bad habit of trying to get you on the most populous roads. While usually the most direct they are also the most crowded and prone to mystery slowdowns and so on. One slow down we saw was an actual crash. No deaths but a lot of angry looking people on the side of the road. Sad to be home in every way possible... Like Ace said the day before we left "I am going the miss the beach." Yup.